Editor,

I am a former Mooresville town board member who served with Chris Carney, a candidate for the N.C. Senate District 44 in the upcoming May 8 primary.

It is important for the voters to know that Mr. Carney is not a conservative Republican. He supported the purchase of a bankrupt cable television company (now known as MI-Connection) with the taxpayers’ money. The debt to the taxpayers in Mooresville is huge as a result of Mr. Carney’s decision.

The citizens of the town were outraged and let their position be known, and he supported the deal in spite of the public outrage.

Mr. Carney was quoted in The Gatton Report on Oct. 25, 2008, that he has switched to MI-Connection for his home cable service: “I now have a whopping cable bill like everybody else,” Carney said.

That is not the attitude we need in Raleigh and certainly not the actions of a conservative politician. The financial burden on the taxpayers in our small town is overwhelming.

Chris Carney’s vote has put local government in direct competition with the Time Warners of the world. Government-owned television is akin to socialism – not the free enterprise, capitalistic system.

Mooresville is in debt in excess of $90 million as a result of Mr. Carney’s decision. We are the owner of a company where technology is out of date and we compete with private companies while using taxpayer dollars. This is fundamentally wrong, and Mr. Carney should have known better. Not only does he vote to expand government using tax dollars, he is responsible for raising the water/sewer rates on the citizens in Mooresville.

Chris Carney’s record to bail out a bankrupt private cable business with our money and put Mooresville in the television business is anything but conservative. Voters in Senate District 44 need to know.

– Danny Beaver, former Mooresville town board member